The Retail FX Trader: Random Trading and the Negative Sum Game

With the internet boom of early 2000 making access to trading the Foreign Exchange (FX) market far simpler for members of the general public, the growth of 'retail' FX trading continues, with daily transaction volumes as high as $200 billion. Potential new entrants to the retail FX trading world may come from the recent UK pension deregulations, further increasing the volumes. The attraction of FX trading is that it offers high returns and whilst it has been understood that it is high-risk in nature, the rewards are seen as being commensurately high for the 'skilled and knowledgeable' trader who has an edge over other market participants. This paper analyses a number of independent sources of data and previous research, to examine the profitability of the Retail FX trader and compares the results with that of a simulated random trading models. This paper finds evidence to suggest that whilst approximately 20% of traders can expect to end up with a profitable account, around 40% might expect their account to be subject to a margin call. This paper finds a strong correlation between the overall profitability of traders and impact of the cost of the bid-ask spread, whilst finding little if any evidence that retail FX traders, when viewed as a group, are achieving results better than that from random trading

Greenland ice core “signal” characteristics: An expanded view of climate change

The last millenium of Earth history is of particular interest because it documents the environmental complexities of both natural variability and anthropogenic activity. We have analyzed the major ions contained in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP 2) ice core from the present to ∼674 A.D. to yield an environmental reconstruction for this period that includes a description of nitrogen and sulfur cycling, volcanic emissions, sea salt and terrestrial influences. We have adapted and extended mathematical procedures for extracting sporadic (e.g., volcanic) events, secular trends, and periodicities found in the data sets. Finally, by not assuming that periodic components (signals) were “stationary” and by utilizing evolutionary spectral analysis, we were able to reveal periodic processes in the climate system which change in frequency, “turn on,” and “turn off” with other climate transitions such as\u27that between the little ice age and the medieval warm period

Pressure studies of impurity levels in AlxGa1-xAs

doi: 10.1088/0268-1242/4/4/033The authors present a study of the deep and shallow donor levels under hydrostatic pressure. The shallow levels follow the conduction bands, while the deep levels are strongly sublinear with pressure. The temperature dependence of the intensities and energies is used to obtain an energy level diagram of the deep levels at high pressures.This work was supported by theU S Army under grant number DAAL03-86K-0083, the US Department of Energy under grant number DE-AC02 84ER45048, and Amoco Corporation. M Chandrasekhar is a n A P Sloan Foundation Fellow

On the Nature of Memory and Rejuvenation in Glassy Systems

The memory effect in a single crystal spin glass ($\mathrm{Cu}_{0.92}\mathrm{Mn}_{0.08}$) has been measured using $1 \mathrm{Hz}$ ac susceptibility techniques over a reduced temperature range of $0.4 - 0.7 \, T_g$ and a model of the memory effect has been developed. A double-waiting-time protocol is carried out where the spin glass is first allowed to age at a temperature below $T_g$, followed by a second aging at a lower temperature after it has fully rejuvenated. The model is based on calculating typical coincidences between the growth of correlated regions at the two temperatures. It accounts for the absolute magnitude of the memory effect as a function of both waiting times and temperatures. The data can be explained by the memory loss being a function of the relative change in the correlated volume at the first waiting temperature because of the growth in the correlations at the second waiting temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Joint modelling of multi-scale animal movement data using hierarchical hidden Markov models

1.Hidden Markov models are prevalent in animal movement modelling, where they are widely used to infer behavioural modes and their drivers from various types of telemetry data. To allow for meaningful inference, observations need to be equally spaced in time, or otherwise regularly sampled, where the corresponding temporal resolution strongly affects what kind of behaviours can be inferred from the data. 2.Recent advances in biologging technology have led to a variety of novel telemetry sensors which often collect data from the same individual simultaneously at different time scales, e.g. step lengths obtained from GPS tags every hour, dive depths obtained from time‐depth recorders once per dive, or accelerations obtained from accelerometers several times per second. However, to date, statistical machinery to address the corresponding complex multi‐stream and multi‐scale data is lacking. 3.We propose hierarchical hidden Markov models as a versatile statistical framework that naturally accounts for differing temporal resolutions across multiple variables. In these models, the observations are regarded as stemming from multiple, connected behavioural processes, each of which operates at the time scale at which the corresponding variables were observed. 4.By jointly modelling multiple data streams, collected at different temporal resolutions, corresponding models can be used to infer behavioural modes at multiple time scales, and in particular help to draw a much more comprehensive picture of an animal's movement patterns, e.g. with regard to long‐term vs. short‐term movement strategies. 5.The suggested approach is illustrated in two real‐data applications, where we jointly model i) coarse‐scale horizontal and fine‐scale vertical Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) movements throughout the English Channel, and ii) coarse‐scale horizontal movements and corresponding fine‐scale accelerations of a horn shark (Heterodontus francisci) tagged off the Californian coast

The Role of National Debts in the Determination of the Yen-Dollar Exchange Rate

An intertemporal optimization model is developed to examine the determinants of the long-run nominal yen-dollar exchange rate in the presence of national debts. The model is tested empirically using data from Japan and the USA. The proposed theoretical specification is well supported by the data and shows that relative national debts as well as monetary and financial factors may play a significant role in the determination of the long-run nominal exchange rate between the yen and the dollar

Ca2+-binding protein 2 inhibits Ca2+-channel inactivation in mouse inner hair cells

Ca2+ channels mediate excitation-secretion coupling and show little inactivation at sensory ribbon synapses, enabling reliable synaptic information transfer during sustained stimulation. Studies of Ca2+-channel complexes in HEK293 cells indicated that Ca2+-binding proteins (CaBPs) antagonize their calmodulin-dependent inactivation. Although human mutations affecting CABP2 were shown to cause hearing impairment, the role of CaBP2 in auditory function and the precise disease mechanism remained enigmatic. Here, we disrupted CaBP2 in mice and showed that CaBP2 is required for sound encoding at inner hair cell synapses, likely by suppressing Ca2+-channel inactivation. We propose that the number of activatable Ca2+ channels at the active zone is reduced when CaBP2 is lacking, as is likely the case with the newly described human CABP2 mutation

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 33, No. 03

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1093/thumbnail.jp

MicroRNA-126-3p/5p and Aortic Stiffness in Patients with Turner Syndrome

Background: Turner Syndrome (TS) is a relatively rare X-chromosomal disease with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to identify whether the circulating miR-126-3p/5p are involved in the pathophysiology of vascular dysfunction in TS. Methods: Using the RT-qPCR, the abundance levels of miR-126-3p and miR-126-5p were determined in 33 TS patients and 33 age-matched healthy volunteers (HVs). Vascular screening, including the assessment of blood pressure, pulse wave velocity, augmentation index, aortic deformation, arterial distensibility, and arterial elastance, was conducted in TS patients and HVs. Results: The abundance levels of miR-126-3p and miR-126-5p were significantly higher in TS patients compared to HVs (p < 0.0001). Within the TS cohort, miR-126-3p/5p correlated significantly with aortic deformation (r = 0.47, p = 0.01; r = 0.48, p < 0.01) and arterial distensibility (r = 0.55, p < 0.01; r = 0.48, p < 0.01). In addition, a significant negative correlation was demonstrated between miR-126-3p and arterial elastance (r = −0.48, p = 0.01). The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that miR-126-3p and miR-126-5p separated the tested groups with high sensitivity and specificity. Conclusions: The abundance levels of miR-126-3p and miR-126-5p were significantly higher in TS patients compared to HVs. Within the TS cohort, a lower abundance level of miR-126-3p and miR-126-5p was linked with a significantly higher aortic stiffness

Insights from circulating microRNAs in cardiovascular entities in turner syndrome patients

Background Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal disorder, in which a female is partially or entirely missing one of the two X chromosomes, with a prevalence of 1:2500 live female births. The present study aims to identify a circulating microRNA (miRNA) signature for TS patients with and without congenital heart disease (CHD). Methods Microarray platform interrogating 2549 miRNAs were used to detect the miRNA abundance levels in the blood of 33 TS patients and 14 age-matched healthy volunteer controls (HVs). The differentially abundant miRNAs between the two groups were further validated by RT-qPCR. Results We identified 60 differentially abundant miRNA in the blood of TS patients compared to HVs, from which, 41 and 19 miRNAs showed a higher and a lower abundance levels in TS patients compared to HVs, respectively. RT-qPCR confirmed the significantly higher abundance levels of eight miRNAs namely miR-374b-5p, miR-199a-5p, miR-340-3p, miR-125b-5p, miR-30e-3p, miR-126-3p, miR-5695, and miR-26b-5p in TS patients as compared with the HVs. The abundance level of miR-5695 was higher in TS patients displaying CHD as compared to TS patients without CHD (p = 0.0265; log2-fold change 1.99); whereas, the abundance level of miR-126-3p was lower in TS patients with congenital aortic valve disease (AVD) compared to TS patients without BAV (p = 0.0139, log2-fold change 1.52). The clinical feature statistics revealed that miR-126-3p had a significant correlation with sinotubular junction Z-score (r = 0.42; p = 0.0154). Conclusion The identified circulating miRNAs signature for TS patients with manifestations associated with cardiovascular diseases provide new insights into the molecular mechanism of TS that may guide the development of novel diagnostic approaches